


Chasing Rabbits

by eternaleponine



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 06:58:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you pilot a jaeger, every moment could be your last.  This time, it really is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chasing Rabbits

"What do you think it's like?" he asks, in the hazy space of the afterglow/post-Drift hangover that is like a drug and some things never change but this is good (isn't it?). This won't destroy her (will it?). This is the gift(?) he gives her.

"You're not allowed to die," she tells him, and means it.

* * *

**DAMN YOU.** She doesn't know if she means the kaiju or Aleksis, who is hurt – she can feel his hurt – and who is slipping although he tries to hold on, leaving her behind. **DAMN YOU.** She coils her body and throws another punch.

She can't speak, because she can't breathe. All she has left is the air in her lungs and it's running out too fast. 

She can't start chasing rabbits even now, because if she breaks the neural handshake it's all over. It's all over anyway, but they have the chance to do what so few others can – they can choose not to die alone. She just has to hold on, and that's one thing she's good at. If she can manage over eighteen hours, she can keep them together now. She can't start chasing rabbits...

* * *

A cigarette dangles from his lips as he pats his pockets, searching for a light. She steals it, lights it and sucks in a long drag, then pushes herself up onto her toes and breathes it out again, right into his face. 

He has seen her before, once or twice, always at the center of whatever trouble is brewing. A bruise mars her cheekbone, the corner of her eye, and there is a split in her scarlet-painted lips. They curve into a smile as she offers the cigarette back. 

He reaches for it, and she snatches it back. She is trying to provoke him, and it's a game he has played before. It's not one he likes. His fuse is long, but it has an end, and he has no use for a girl – woman? – who wants to see how long it will burn before it blows. 

She offers it again, but he doesn't reach for it, so she steps closer, and closer still, her eyes narrowing slightly as she invades his space. Still, he doesn't move, and something shifts in her expression. She takes a step back, and leans against the wall beside him, taking another drag before offering a third time.

This time he takes it, and this time she lets him. They pass it back and forth until it's gone, but she remains even then, as the music crashes around and through them, like a deafening heartbeat that pounds like the discontent that they share.

She leads him home with her, takes him to her bed.

"You don't even know my name," he tells her.

She raises an eyebrow. "I know who you are, Aleksis Kaidanovsky." She hands him the identification card that she stripped him of back at the club without his noticing.

He takes it, shakes his head, laughs. "And who are you then?"

She kisses him rough, then kisses him gentle, and only when it's over and she decides that she'd rather he stay, says, "You can call me Sasha."

They never spend another night apart.

*

She sings in the shower, her voice cracked and uneven. He recognizes the song and joins in from the bedroom. He hears her hesitate, then continue.

It becomes a habit.

*

"Close your eyes and hold out your hands."

He does, because he trusts her and because there's something in her eyes, some bright mischief that tells him she's up to something good. And then he is holding something soft and small and he opens his eyes and the tiny kitten, rendered smaller still by the long fingers and broad palms that cup it, mews at him and bumps its head against his thumb.

And the memory is in his head, of playing with the kittens that the barn cats had every spring when he was a boy. She must have seen it, because he'd never told her.

"Where did you...?"

She reaches out and traces her finger down the creature's spine. "I borrowed it."

"Borrowed?"

"No one will miss it for a little while."

"Sasha!" But he's laughing, and so is she, and he hooks a finger into her belt and pulls her into a kiss.

*

She is quick to anger and loud with it. He burns cold and slow. He raises her up and she anchors him. They are nothing alike, and they are exactly the same. They are perfect for each other.

But can they do this?

Between jaeger pilots there must be respect and trust, but Aleksis thinks that there is something more to it. He thinks (but he'll never say it, there is no room of sentimentality here in the Shatterdome) that there is something more to it than that, something that must exist for it to work. There must be love.

And that is where he fears they will fail.

He has said the words a few times, and it is met with a deflection, a distraction, or silence. 

There is passion there in abundance, and trust, and respect. How else would they have gotten this far? But love?

"Initiating neural handshake."

There is no going back.

They are sucked into the Drift, and he has to remind himself not to try to hold on to the thoughts and memories that flash by. It evens out, and they stand side by side, two halves of one whole, where she ends and where he begins hopelessly blurred. 

"Neural handshake one hundred percent. Holding strong and steady."

Sasha never had any doubt, and Aleksis wonders how he ever could have, because there is only one greater force in Sasha's life than the desire to destroy the monsters that threaten their world, and that is her love for him.

*

She assumes he thinks it's just a body-hurt, not a heart-soul-mind-hurt that has her curled up fetal in their bed, the mission over and only his eyes on her so she can give in to it now.

He folds himself around her, his warm hands over her belly, and holds her tight because he knows better.

*

She sits behind him, her chin on his shoulder and her hand over his heart, as she often does when, for a moment, everything is all right. He lays his hand over hers and pulls it away, turning so that he can see her face, but only sidelong.

"Something doesn't look right," he says, examining her fingers, each one decorated with a heavy ring like a rich man's brass knuckles.

She clenches them reflexively, and he glances at her and smoothes them out. He slides the ring from the fourth finger of her right hand. She watches and says nothing; she has learned that in the quiet he rarely does anything without a great deal of thought behind it. He pulls a ring from his own pinkie and holds it up beside hers, then carefully, deliberately, exchanges them. 

"Better," he says.

Here at the beginning of the end of the world it is all the wedding that they need.

*

He wakes up in pain and does not know where he is. She lifts her head from the edge of the bed and smiles, reaches out to touch his cheek. "What did I tell you?" she asks. He expects anger, but her tone is gentle, teasing even.

"I'm still here."

"Too close for comfort," she chides.

"It won't happen again."

"See that it doesn't." She moves like she has aged a decade or more overnight, but ignores her own hurts to tend to his. 

"Let it be," he tells her. "Come here." He groans as he shifts, making room for her beside him, but the pain is less when they share it.

* * *

They knew when they came out here that there was a good chance they would not return. But hadn't that always the case? They'd held the Siberian wall for six years, and every time they went out, they didn't know if they would come back. They'd learned to live as if each moment might be their last.

But here they were, pinned beneath the water, and this really was the end. 

_No regrets?_ , she asks Aleksis.

_None._

_You know that--_

_I know._

_Don't leave me._

_Where would I go?_

She is so used to fighting. All her life, for everything, she fought. Then there was Aleksis, and she'd learned (not quickly) that sometimes it was all right to stop fighting. That she could pick her battles, and not waste energy on those that weren't worth it. 

And more than that, he'd taught her that sometimes (with him, where she was always safe even when they lived on the razor's edge between life and death) she could give in. She could surrender, and he would catch her if she fell.

_Are you ready?_

_Are you?_

_No._

But it doesn't matter.

The end is here, ready or not.

She turns to look at him, even though she cannot see, and knows he turns to her. They extend their hands but can't quite reach.

Still, they're not alone. As one...

... for the last time...

... they take a breath.


End file.
